Valerie

Peter S. Beagle is a warm blanket author of mine. When I just need stories that are beautiful and musical and comfortable, I turn to him. The Overneath was a great pandemic read. It not only has TWO short stories about Schmendrick the Magician but also a host of other unicorns from around the world. Like most of Beagle's short fiction, the stories are melancholy, wistful, and beautiful. I would say the exception here is “Underbridge” which is the most straight-up horror I've ever read from Beagle. Definitely Little Shop vibes from that one. I think the first and last stories are my favorite. If you're a fan of The Last Unicorn, these short stories are especially worth your time.

I haven't read the Dark Tower since high school, and I dropped off after that million year hiatus between Wizard and Glass and Wolves of Calla, but I have a lot of fond memories of the series. I'd like to get back into it, but the universe is so vast now I'd probably just end up reading Stephen King for months on end. I won this graphic novel on Free Comic Book Day (It's a major award) and was very pleased. It's actually a prequel (which may or may not come from information in books 5-7) that tells the story of Roland and Susan, of the Man in Black, and of the initial ka-tet of Roland, Cuthbert, and Alain.

It definitely adds to the mythos well, although it's a little awkward to believe Roland is 14 during this time. He doesn't look 14 artists, and that's for the best considering the subject matter. The art style reminds me a lot of Preacher: a dark, western feel that holds nothing back when it comes to gore and horror. At times it was a little much for my taste, but the story makes up for it. The language felt like something of a homecoming, and I particularly enjoy the Wilfred Brimley quality to the dialect.

If you enjoy the Dark Tower, and especially if you've worked as hard as the Reading Guides suggest to fully explore this series, you shouldn't miss out on this companion.

Sandman was my gateway drug into comics. I already loved Gaiman's novels and wanted to read everything I could get my hands on, which meant looking at a medium that had not held too much interest for me previously. I think I'd be a different person today if I hadn't read it.

That said, if you're holding Overture in your hands, you've probably read Sandman too, and you're probably wondering if going back to that world so many years later is a good thing. I don't think I can answer that. It was for me, even with new artists and new themes. It has Morpheus and the gang. It has experimental visuals that recall the original while forging new grounds. It has answers to questions I've always wondered about. And it has cats. I love when Gaiman writes cats.

So, I think the answer is yes, it's a good thing. I'm sure it was challenging for the original production members involved, and I'm glad they did so. While I picked up the floppies as they came out, the Deluxe version has tons of extras about the process which is fun if you're interested in that sort of thing. As someone who tends to read comics too fast, these interviews and articles were a good place to make me slow down and observe the subtler bits of magic.

If you like Sandman, you should read this. That's about the sum.

This is Lemony Snicket's version of Encyclopedia Brown. It's got all of the wordplay and literary reference of Snicket's other works combined with the opportunity to exercise those sleuth skills and feel smarter than all the other kids, even if you're... you know, 32. It's a great mystery array for kids which they can then reread as adults and wonder at all the jokes they missed.

Last Saturday, I was privileged enough to get to hear Peter S. Beagle speak for the second time in my life. I went to a local theatre, listened to him talk about his career, and then watched “The Last Unicorn” with a few dozen other extremely excited fans. After the show, Peter was kind enough to autograph ... all of the things I'd brought and the new items I bought. Among these was the most recent edition of “The Last Unicorn.”

The film is such an intrinsic part of my childhood that I can't honestly remember a time without it or without nightmares of triple-breasted harpies. Nightmares or no, it was still one of my favorite movies, but I don't believe I've actually read the book until now.

It has been a very long time since I've finished a book with tears in my eyes, particularly a book where I can already recite the dialogue from memory. Reading doesn't normally make me tear up in the first place, but I did with this one. Someone in the theatre audience pointed out that all of Beagle's works have a deep sense of melancholy to them. That's true of this story too, but that melancholy is a sweet one, accented by Beagle's wit and humor along with his way of phrasing simple things in lights never done before or since. The language of this book is worth picking it up even if you've never enjoyed a fantasy book before. This is a book with texture.

At its heart, the story is both a fairy tale and a satire of fairy tales. The characters themselves have a meta-sense that they are in a story, and they make distinctions between those within and without the narrative. As a person who has always tried desperately to fit events into some sort of logical story, I appreciate this aspect. I also appreciate the characters themselves who are truly whole beings even within the fairy tale paradigm of heroes and villains. Without a doubt, Schmendrick and Molly Grue are my favorites. What other writer gives the reader an immortal Jewish wannabee magician (last of the red-hot swamis!) and a middle-aged vagrant cook as their guides through a fairy tale? At the screening, Beagle talked about Molly Grue being a gift to him from somewhere. He doesn't know where she came from, but she is the part of this story of which he is most proud. She is the anti-heroine of my dreams, anyway.

But the thing that makes this book as famous as it is today is the Unicorn herself. I learned recently that Beagle's unicorn is the first female unicorn in literature. Up until this book, all unicorns were males, and he was the first writer to step out of that box. I guess that means I can thank him for My Little Pony and the rest of my childhood as well. The Unicorn in this story is a singular creature with thought patterns so far removed from humans that it's amazing a human wrote her. Beagle lets us watch her, but we can never understand her, and our feelings are given voice by the characters in the story.

The theme that echoes through the pages is one of immortality, those who seek to win it by fair means and foul. From Mommy Fortuna, happy to die under the harpy's claws if that means the harpy will always remember who caged her, to poor Cully writing ballads of his own deeds never done, to Haggrid and his quest to hold the unicorns prisoner even after his death, all of the antagonists struggle for immortality. Our heroes meanwhile, struggle to make the best of the time they have. Schmendrick, cursed with immortality, seeks only to lift the curse find true magic. Molly Grue, who knows her time with unicorns should be long over, treasures the one that comes too later. Even Lir, whom I never fully enjoy but whom I understand much better thanks to the book, is somewhat aware that his relationship with Amalthea is slipping through an hourglass. “The Last Unicorn” uses the immortal to make the reader look at mortality and how we humans choose to spend it.

While I've really only discovered Beagle's literary works recently, he has quickly moved to the forefront of my favorite living authors. I cannot recommend his books enough, and if you shared a childhood with me, this is probably the best place to start. One of the author blurbs calls it “achingly beautiful,” and that's really the sum of this too long review. Finishing it left the ache in my heart that all mortals get when they've seen a unicorn.

So this was... bad. Not like offensive or anything but just very fanfiction turned in for a creative writing assignment bad. I think I got it for free or cheap and didn't realize that while Hugh Howey gave his blessing for it to be written, he didn't really have anything else to do with the spinoff series. I think there is much better fanfiction for Wool available on A03.

I feel bad giving it such a low rating because I'm sure Christy is a huge fan who was really wants to expand the Wool universe, but I couldn't find anything I can honestly say I liked about this. Flat characters, zero tension, and just bad writing. She uses the phrase “it sounded like her voice had been dipped in sarcasm” at one point. What?

For such a short book, it took me a really long time to read it. The concept was interesting enough as were some of the theories about time, the future, and free will, but honestly I never felt any real connection with the story or the characters, and that kept me from finding much enjoyment in the book.

I doubt I ever would have picked it up if it weren't on the Sword and Laser list. Time-bending stories always leave my head hurting a little bit, so they aren't my favorite thing to read. The conceit of this book is that the consciousness of humanity offers them a brief glimpse of their future at a precise moment in time 21 years and change in the future. The characters spend most of the book dealing with these visions while trying to decide whether or not they can be changed. It's an interesting idea, but the characters don't drive it for me.

I had no interest at all in Lloyd and Michiko's relationship. I had no evidence of their love other than Lloyd saying it so often, and can't think of many details about either character. Theo's storyline is a little more interesting, but still if you asked me to describe him as a person and not as a scientist... I couldn't do it. Without investing in him, I didn't really care if he lived or died at the end.

Much of the book is spent giving us Sawyer's interpretation of the future (where no one wears blue jeans anymore). These details generally threw me out of the story because they didn't seem to have a logical fit. Big fingers kept pointing at all the differences in a way that made them almost annoying, like the author was trying to show how clever he is by these wacky little flavor details of the future.

The ending, too, went way off center. It was so different from the rest of the book as to feel out of place. Since most of it centers on Lloyd, my interest was pretty minimal. I just couldn't make myself care.

If you're into time travel and procedural stuff, you might enjoy this more. Likewise if you have a rudimentary grasp on physics which I really don't. I'm sure that there's plenty of in-jokes for people more versed in both the genre and the science. For me, though, the book just didn't gel.

It's been a long time since I've read any Murakami, but I always enjoy him, and the various translators for this collection of short stories are excellent. I think “Samsa in Love” is my favorite, probably because it's the weirdest and I love Murakami most when he gets weird, but even the stories with no magical realism elements were solid reads, and I'd recommend them.

I first read this book 15 years ago when I was a freshman in college. Ouch time flies. There is a huge difference in reading this book at 18 vs 33, and I found a lot of my reread was more about looking at my shifting interpretation of the events rather than the actual events, so this might be a weirdly personal review.

The first thing I noticed is that the science just didn't stand up. Russell wrote this in 1996, and even when I read it in 2000, I was completely able to suspend my disbelief that travel outside our solar system via hollowed out mining asteroids would be completely possible in the next couple of decades by a group of untrained but enthusiastic explorers. Oh, and nobody would really notice till they were gone. 33 year old me was shaking her head at the flippant carelessness of the mission where 18 year old me was as smitten as Emilio was by the divinely ordained exploration.

However, this story is more anthropological fantasy than science fiction, so let's just move past that.

The story has a dual core, beginning with First Contact and how we handle it. Russell states in the extra material that she was inspired by Columbus and other figures from the Age of Exploration and the disastrous effects they had on the societies they touched. She has her characters, none of them trained in the Prime Directive, act based on faith and emotion as well as admittedly little science. Where 18 year old me was shocked at the repercussions of their actions, 33 year old me is much likely to say “I told you so!”

The second core is that of faith and the divine. The bulk of the story is addressed with a Jesuit philosophy (and Jesuits in space seems to be a theme I really enjoy), which makes sense considering how often Jesuits have been the first point of contact for two cultures. Sofia's character allows for some Judaic thought to be woven in as well. It tells about how dangerous it can be to view events as ordained by the divine. A sparrow cannot fall without God knowing it, but the sparrow still falls. That meant very different things to an 18 year old soul searcher compared to a 33 year old cynic. Both readers, however, love the way Russell plays with morality and ethics, taking no sides but pulling no punches either. It is an effective if intentionally unclear lesson in the school of “shit happens.” Having 15 extra years of experience in that area took the book to a different level for me.

Let's not leave out that Russell's writing is still a treat to read even if the science isn't. She has crafted a completely different evolutionary chain on Rakhat including two sentient species, language system Tolkien would be proud of, and a richness of culture that runs the gambit from depraved to divine. For that alone, I have to recommend reading this book, although it is not for the faint of heart and trigger warnings definitely apply. Read it, and read it again to see how you change.

I really liked the ideas the book proposes surrounding the movement from childhood to adulthood being the movement from grace to hard work. It meshes very well with my own feelings of child development, and that point at which you realize people aren't going to hand you magic objects anymore. That said, I thought this books ideas on the way to lead a good life were the most bluntly stated in the trilogy. It's philosophy I agree with, but I'd rather it wasn't spelled out in quite such large letters. Let the message of the story speak for itself.

On that story, I really love the parallels being drawn between Lyra and her mother. At the end of the book, I still don't feel I truly grasp Mrs. Coulter as a character. I'm not sure if that's a failing in my own reading or in the storytelling. The same could be said of Lord Asriel. Lyra and Will, on the other hand, are such deeply gripping characters that I couldn't put the book down during their chapters and got rather frustrated with anyone else's point of view. Ah well. A great book, though still stretching the definition of “children's literature,” publishers. Pullman never intended them as such, but I'm still shelving them there because thoughtful, mature children should read them.

This book has been recommended to me by probably four separate individuals who didn't understand that it was on my list and I MUST FOLLOW THE LIST. That said, I'm glad to have finally reached it in the list because it was everything I enjoy about light-hearted sci-fi.

Since I've never been huge on video games, I thought I might miss out on some of the humor, but there was plenty of referential humor for every 80s child. It's basically 400 pages of nerdy peacock displays. I am ... basically all about that. The actual story, though, is not in any way devalued by the references. Cline's characters are a diverse bunch who are very real in an unreal world. The pacing is lightning quick and I stayed up way too late last night trying to knock out the last hundred pages because there was just no where to stop. Also there was a frickin' Gundam.

The world-wide Easter Egg Hunt is a pretty simple premise that goes off on a thousand tangents, each one more enjoyable than the last. Admittedly there is an Evil Corporation and a 80s high school Love Story with the standard arcs and valleys, but part of that is the homage to the genre, in my opinion. My favorite part was the bits with Wade working within Evil Corporation. Cline reinvents indentured servitude in a very page-turning away.

The only thing that kinda bugged me was the portrayal of the two Japanese characters. I have never known any Japanese person to say “he has no honor.” Klingons say that. Not Japanese. Not even Japanese who enjoy samurai films. They had this stilted, austere presence which in no way resembled anyone I met in Japan. It's very hard to write someone who is not fluent in the language of the author, and I think those characters stuck out against the rest of the cast.

Overall, though, if you have an ounce of 80s nostalgia in your body, you will enjoy this book and should definitely give it a read.

This is a remarkably well-researched book. Reading it, I was deeply impressed by how it remains a character-driven narrative with (to my layman's eyes at least) spot-on science that never breaks the flow of the narrative. I feel like occasionally the marginalization of women and people of color got a little heavy-handed, but never inaccurate. It might be because it was told through the lens of a white woman that sometimes issues of race feel a little less natural, but Kowal does a good job of having Elma check her privilege often in a way that does feel mostly natural. Elma is a good example of a character who is not racist, who genuinely believes people are equal, but was raised in such a way that she forgets to consider other perspectives regularly. It happens a lot, which I think is accurate, but I'm not used to reading it which is why it maybe felt preachy to me.

I would also add that Elma and Nathaniel are maybe one of the best couples I've every read. Smart, supportive, open and understanding. Relationships don't have to be the drama!

I will probably continue on in this series because it is such a dramatic balance of science and story-telling.

I was lucky enough to get an ARC of this at Denver Comic Con. Seriously, Tattered Cover just gave me a free Kevin Hearne book. Amazing! I'm a big fan of the Iron Druid series, and I was really excited to see Hearne writing in a high fantasy style rather than an urban one. The thing about Iron Druid is, it reads like popcorn, but popcorn with a ton of research, mythos, plotting, and work put into it. It is high quality popcorn. Gourmet. Plague of Giants makes the effort that goes into it more recognizable as you get to see the whole world created from scratch, and it's great.

I love the magic system: the idea that you risk your life to earn magic and then spend your life to use it. I love the variety of magic and cultures Hearne creates. I love the serial storytelling in novel form. And I love bards. I've been playing a lot of D&D lately, and 5E bards are badasses.

There's an incredible cast, diverse without being a statement on diversity, and while some stories are more interesting than others (I would've been happy just to read Abhi's story, honestly), they all tie together nicely.. It's also a book with incredibly high stakes, as the characters make lethal mistakes over and over, and cope with the loss and guilt they incur. Loss, guilt, and survival are really the strongest themes, and some chapters hurt, and that hurt is cathartic.

The only criticism I really have is that this book is very obviously the first of a series, and it does not feel particularly ended when you get to the end. I'm ready to pick up the next book now, but this book hasn't even been technically released yet. Hopefully, by the time Blight of Blackwings is out, I'll still have all these stories close enough to my mind to read it.

I received a copy of this book through First Reads. I like to go through the nonfiction giveaways and just see if there's anything fun to learn, but honestly, I entered this one on kind of a whim. I have very little knowledge of medical practices, historical or current, so I figured even if I did get it, I probably wouldn't be able to understand it. Exploration, on the other hand, is a huge interest of mine, so I gave it a try any way.

The book is surprisingly accessible to a medical novice. Fong uses easy to understand analogies and intense true stories to illustrate his major points and make them easily understood. The themes tie together and really impress on the reader the importance of forging through dangers. I'm not sure I agree with every point, but I do like that this book ends optimistically and emphasizes the good that can rise out of tragedy.

It's an interesting read and probably even more appreciated by someone with a little medical background knowledge.

Yes, I used my first week of quarantine to read “Love in the Time of Cholera.” It just felt appropriate. Granted, both love and cholera hang more like specters in this novel than main characters. I always think of Marquez as a classics writer, and I forget that he only passed away 6 years ago, and this novel was published in 1985. More than the story, I found this a fascinating study in prose and character creation. The meandering, conversational exploration of dozens of vibrant lives is a feat, and even in translation the language resonates.

It's called a love story, but it explores love in a broad context, from the naive love at first sight of youth to the comfort of growing into love, from fleeting romances and taboos, to rediscovering romance in old age. Love is a disease; love is a medicine. Love is an equalizer; Love is a power struggle. I'm too far away from my Literature degree to leave a better review than this.

Did I enjoy this book? How can I know? I think I did, but did I enjoy it because it was an easy to read, interesting psychology book for the layman or because the green color reminded me of the laundry room paint in my condo? Or did I enjoy it because reading nonfiction makes me feel more intelligent and boosts my ego? After reading this book, you will doubt everything you think you know about why you make the decisions you make. It is interesting and also a bit disturbing, but a good book for your average person interested in how brains work.

I got to meet Jhonen Vasquez this weekend and get my Director's Cut copy of JtHM signed :) He is a gracious person and when I thanked him for making me laugh, he thanked me for thinking it was funny. He is also not (to my knowledge at least) a homicidal maniac.

This was an odd book to reread. I came to Vasquez through “I Feel Sick,” which I maintain is his greatest work to date. JtHM is his first multi-issue comic, and the raw edges definitely show, especially in the first couple of issues. By the end, however, there is a serious narrative hiding behind the extreme violence, a story about manipulation, exclusivity, and the facades people wear. I think that's why, even though I'm more sensitive to the violence than I was in my twenties, I still enjoy the piece as a whole. I also realized that this is where a lot of my favorite non-sequitur quotes originated. For got that in the last decade.

JtHM is over-the-top violent and some of the Happy Noodle Boy bits are too crass for me to really enjoy, but if those two things don't bother you, it's well-worth a read. Vasquez took the “Goth Comic” and added serious substance and bizarre humor that make it far more than a simple blood book. I still might suggest starting with “I Feel Sick” because it shows off how honed Vasquez becomes, but then go back learn about Johnny (and Devi'a origin story).

Also Johnny goes to Heaven/Hell are still awesome. What about this coat? Can I keep this coat? But it fits me perfectly! And the lining!

Octavia Butler was a master of her craft, and Wild Seed is no exception to her work. It is wonderfully complex, ambivalent, and questioning, delving into issues such as gender, slavery, race, and divinity. In this, it is very like Xenogenesis, with characters making choice and getting involved in situations that, while obviously unhealthy, still might be their best option. The idea of two immortals locked in a world of impermanence but with wildly divergent philosophies about how to spend their time is intriguing, one valuing and creating life at every chance she gets and the other destroying and refining life in the hopes of creating something better. This latter is a problematic character, but one who nevertheless earns the sympathies of the reader and his protagonist counterpart. I don't really feel like a skilled enough writer to review Butler's works, but I will recommend this to all fans of science fiction with a dose of social philosophy.

I think I getting more used to the bananas world made this second volume a lot easier to handle than the first. I didn't spend the whole time just desperately trying to figure out what all these high concept science magic stuff was, and could enjoy the characters more. If you're on the fence about continuing this series, I would say go for it; it gets easier. The new characters are interesting, Jedao is still great, and without spoiling anything, I wasn't disappointed in the Cheris storyline either.

Hmmm... Hmm... Book two in this series is definitely a bridging book. I didn't enjoy it quite as much as Annihilation possibly because the narrator wasn't as interesting to me and the action was a lot slower paced, but I still enjoyed it. This book explores Southern Reach as it relates to Area X as well as the cast of mentally unstable people who work there. Hypnosis, misinformation, and cryptic artwork once again combine to create an unreliable narrator (and narrative) and a conspiracy that swirls deeper with every chapter. The ending is once again ambiguous, and means I really have to read the third book before I can properly sort my feelings on the series.

Still recommended for fans of Haruki Murakami, Joe Hill, Mark Danielewski, and the “New Weird” in general.

I have mixed feelings about Scalzi's writing (see previous rants about said said said said said said). However, I think he always has a really good story to tell. I always burn through his books pretty quickly and feel good when they are done. Redshirts is certainly my favorite, but I've enjoyed the OMW series as well.

Fuzzy Nation, isn't quite as good a story. Don't get me wrong, it's still exciting and the main characters are entertaining, but the message is just so very very heavy-handed. We have a big evil mining tycoon and a hotshot but mysteriously disbarred lawyer deciding the fate of an adorable group of fuzzy things who manage to teach themselves English from an iPad. I don't know if we handed an iPad to a primitive civilization that it would be quite enough to teach them the basics for coherent speech let alone moving courtroom monologues.

Maybe it's having just read Boneshaker which stretched my suspended disbelief as far as the cables would hold, but I didn't have much left for this story and I kept feeling the message hammer hitting on my head over and over. Wheaton (who can only be pictured as Evil Wil Wheaton thanks to that name. I know that was intentional, Scalzi) is so obviously evil that it hurts. Isabel is so pristinely perfect as to hurt. Jack is more complex, and the unfolding of his character is interesting to see, but let's face it, the first scene shows he has a great relationship with his dog. That's just auto-good guy. I never really had any doubts about him doing the right thing at any time.

The story is paced well, and I don't regret reading it, but I guess I was looking for a little more for a writer I've enjoyed so much in the past. This one just didn't live up to my hopes.

David Dalglish admits to idolizing George R.R. Martin in the afterword, and it's pretty obvious when you see how very mean he is to his characters. Honestly, this book was pretty heavy on the rape, torture, and murder for me and not really my cuppa. Still there are a couple of things I really enjoyed.

Firstly, I liked the variety of female archetypes. Most of the female characters were a little flat, but they still ran the good-evil and weak-strong gambit, which is nice. It's nice to have a fantasy book with so many female characters. The Faceless Women were some of my favorites, and I was disappointed that this book didn't go more into depth with them and that two of them died so suddenly in the middle. Is Veldaria going to fulfill her vow? You vowed, Veldaria. While we're at it, Kayla's death was pretty damn anti-climactic too.

I liked the lack of “good” people in the book too. There's lots of people you like, but who still do pretty awful things just to save their own skin or buy someone else a bit of time or even just distracting others. Nobody, with the exception of Delysia and her Gran, is really a decent human being. That's the Martin tribute the book gets right. The fourteen year old "king" is another nice touch. I wasn't expecting it, and I wish he'd gotten a bit more screen time.

On the negative side, I think the book was overly ambitious. There's a lot of plot lines in not a lot of pages, and some of them go no where. The magic system isn't given enough attention to be credible. Characters treat it as so normal and lots of people have “a little magic,” but the rules of the system are never established, and that bugs me. I love a good theology based magic system, but the Karak and Asshur dynamic is give so little attention and the archetypes are so clearly “Bad God/Good God” that I found it a bit of a cheat.

Then there's Aaron. His transformation should have been what kept me interested, but I had a hard time believing it. Kayla saving him seems to be the turning point, but with a kid so groomed for violence... maybe it's the teacher in me who sees kids from much less awful positions never able to fully escape the trauma induced by their early lives, but I just... don't buy it. If Thren was grooming a monster able to murder his own brother at age eight, a monster he would have groomed.

I guess my overall impression was “okay.” I'm not sure I'll continue the series, but if I do I hope it delves a bit more into some of the characters who got the short end of the stick and a little less into the politics.

I started reading this book going, “Okay, this is kind of a cute story.” Then we hit the twist in the middle and my brain did a somersault. I don't think I've ever read a book that so perfectly captures what it feels like to be a teenager, that so personifies that voice we all listened to at one point or another. The artwork is beautiful. The story is unparalleled. Highly recommended for anyone, but I especially wish this book existed when I was fifteen.

I'll admit that when I first heard of Kevin Hearne, I thought that Barenaked Ladies' keyboardist was writing books now and got very excited. Different Kevin Hearne, but still an interesting book. I got my copy through First Reads, which is always fun too.

The thing I enjoyed most about Hounded is the magic system. I did have my own Druid phase in college, so that aspect appealed to me right away, but even aside from the historical roots, the magic system is extremely tight. It doesn't work all the time, and has a strict set of rules, making it entirely believable that you need a solid 2,000 years to master it. Hearne has an extensive knowledge of all sorts of mythology, and he doesn't take cheats around the characters he borrows, either. At times it feel like a few too many mythological creatures (witches, werewolves, vampires, Irish gods, Norse gods, fae folk, partridges in pear trees), but he does approach each character from a solid base of rules. That's neat. Irish wolfhounds are also neat, and I've always wanted one.

A lot of people compare this book to the Dresden Files, and that's easy enough to do. One thing that struck me though is that Harry Dresden is constantly in trouble and always starts out behind the gate. Atticus, on the other hand, always seems to be a step ahead and over-prepared. He kills two gods in this book and kisses three goddesses, even having sex with one just because she's board, From this standpoint, Atticus is a bit MarySue. He's so good at everything, all the ladies love him and all the dudes are jealous of him. I got a bit frustrated with that aspect, especially the fawning women angle.

I'm still interested to see where the story goes, and will likely continue the series when my own “to read” list gets shorter (which it will one day... I swear). If you like urban fantasy, but are a little tired of the noir detective trope, this is a great alternative. It's a fine popcorn read for the weekend.

I know you're not supposed to judge a book by its cover, but I did and the results panned out pretty much as I expected. The Night Circus is the story of two star-crossed magicians expressing their abilities through a hyper-stylized circus. It feels a little like reading a Baz Luhrman/Tim Burton crossover. A lot of the words are dedicated to describing this monochromatic setting and not a lot of time is given to the characters themselves. The plot goes pretty much where you would expect it to go and the characters do pretty much what you would expect them to do. It's not a bad story, but at the end of the day, it isn't really my cuppa.